Really? What does the Dutch government when someone refuses to work? Let them starve? I doubt it.

 

That is a contradiction in the basic law of supply and demand.  The only time prices go down is when service goes down (well documented in several countries).  But the price does not go down because the state has monopoly power.  The cost is shifted to the bureaucracy, and then hidden within government funding.  The price of a "pill" may go down only because government regulation, but then when government artifically forces prices down, you do get shortages (see comment about service).  Any reason that many doctors immigrate to the US?  For now at least.

Which of course is not reflected in the "official" cost of the health care.  Just another bait and switch tactic used.

 

No...

I didn't say the state had monopoly power. I said the state has monopsony power.

A monopsony is the opposite of a monopoly.

And it does cause prices to go down. That _IS_ the basic law of supply and demand.

If there are lots of consumers and only one supplier prices go up.

If there are lots of suppliers and only one consumer prices go down.

The latter is a monopsony. Monopsony power forces prices down just as monopoly power forces prices up. And that's why socialised healthcare is cheaper. There is no way around it.

 

There is some true to this... however you will also kill innovation, since you can t get as good of a price for new drugs or medical equipment. 

That's one way of putting it. Another way is to say that it absolutely true. It's what the law of supply and demand dictates.

 

 

Of course. As I said before:

I stand by what I said.

 

Perhaps you haven't heard the story of the $300 hammer or toilet seat? I assure you they are true. This is what happens when our government (one customer) buys from anyone (single source or not). My take, the less the government is involved in in your day to day life, all the better. Just imagine what they will pay for equipment such as an MRI with far fewer suppliers than a hammer.

Now imagine this, you have government provided socialized heath care. There will still be private practices however. The government will have to set the salary range for the government doctors and nurses. If they set the amount too low, these professionals will gravitate to private health care, leaving the hacks that can't pay their malpractice insurance to work on you the taxpayer. If they pay competitive wages (congress pads their own pocketbooks pretty well after all) what can the taxpayer expect to spend each year for his family, the old guy down the street, the mother of three that just lost her job, and the slob that doesn't want to work?

The best health plan offered where I work was just under $5000 (2007) per year for an entire family. It was cheaper by almost half if you only have a spouse, and 0 cost if you are single.I don't use it because I'm retired military, but if I wasn't I'd gladly pay this premium rather than have the government take an unspecified amount each year from my paycheck. Even fast food places are offering health benefits and there are a lot of help wanted signs hanging in front of them in this area. My idea of a dream job? No, but I'd take it in a heartbeat if it kept my family sheltered, fed, and healthy. The problem here is the lack of something social, but it's not health care, it's the social responsibility to get a job and stop being a endless money pit for the taxpayers. I guess it's always warmer in someone else's pocket.

I am sure they are. Nevertheless, if there were only one customer for hammers, government wouldn't even find a supplier willing to charge as much as $300 for one.

 

I disagree. There is no evidence that government is more corrupt and clueless than non-government entities. But there is a lot of evidence that government is more frugal and reliable.

Ideological statements like "the less the government is involved" make for a good catchphrase but are not even close to being any kind of solution for the problem, which is that some people cannot afford good healthcare. For them government involvement simply _is_ better than the alternative, and catchphrases won't change that simple fact and perception.

 

That picture only works if the sole consumer (government) would indeed pay very little. You are simultaneously assuming that the law of supply and demand will work (and suppliers will make little money and leave) and not work (and corruption will be rampant). In reality only one of the two happens; one in the one system, one in the other.

Note that corruption is merely a form of profit. Whether the money vanished in the government or in greedy suppliers with monopoly power (i.e. few suppliers many customers) is immaterial when comparing costs of the systems. The law of supply and demand tells us that the amount of money removed from the system as profit will be HIGHER in a private healthcare system. This means that whatever wealth an inefficient government will remove from the transaction will be less than the profit of healthcare providers in a private system. Neither are necessary for the system to work but will happen in the real world (i.e. there is no such thing as a 100% efficient customer or a perfectly selfless supplier).

You will be surprised to hear that either system has an advantage and a disadvantage. But socialised healthcare does not have both.

I grew up in a country that has socialised healthcare. I _know_ there are no waiting periods and that the stories told about these systems are lies. I have seen it work. You cannot convince me that it didn't.

Problem is it didn't work well enough. For someone with an income better than average private healthcare systems are better, financially. In Germany doctors are not making much money and the best move away. (And if you think that that is an excellent argument against socialised healthcare, you are correct; but it means that socialised healthcare is indeed cheaper than private healthcare.)

I personally prefer a mixed system: let the government become the only customer for everything necessary (thus creating monopsony power to keep prices low enough) and let a private system take care of speeding things up (thus creating demand for more expensive suppliers). This works very well in Ireland.

 

 

What was covered and what were the limits?

 

The thing with the $300 hammer and the $500 toilet seats wasn't that the individual items cost that much (the items themselves went for about market price).  The point was, when you add in all the extra bureaucratic overhead involved in procurring the hammers/toilet seats, the average price for the items on the contract where way out of proportion.

And that's what would happen with health care.  Yeah, they'd be able to say that a particular procedure costs less, or a particular pill costs less.  What you don't see?  All of the administration costs that are not specified.   When bidding on government contracts, each contracter has a rate they use to cover administration, costs and profit.  They multiply the base/average salary for a contracted position by this rate to get what they're actually going to put in the bid for the cost for that position (that's why my position's going for $95/hour and they pay me substantially less).  All of this gets wrapped into the overhead/administration costs that ARE going to be there.  No help for that. 

Well, right now, do you know how much my family pays for healthcare?  Zero.  So, having socialized medicine will help me how?

I live very close to Canada, and oddly enough, our insurance agent is Canadian.  Does she use her US healthcare or Canadian?  She uses the US because there are more Dr.s and more specialists.  She had a serious condition that she would have to wait 3 months to have treated in Canada- took 2 weeks in the US.

Why would Dr.s work their butts off to b the best possible if they don't have a free market on what they can make?  What is the incentive to be a specialist if you max out at what your government dictated salary would be?

No thank you.  I want expensive Drs that spend their lives in schools and researching to be better Drs so that they can make more money.  I want available response teams and testing equipment available all over the place.  if I need serious healthcare, I want it now, not 3 months from now.

It's not like there aren't free/reduced clinics around, either.  A lot of people who don't get care aren't trying to get care.  A lot of people who aren't insured at all also have not tried to get insurance, or simply choose not to have it.

 

My mistake. However, given the normal market forces, you would be correct. Given that the monopsony is a government institution, you are again wrong. Government tries to be "fair" and in so doing, creates a lot of silly rules that do not add to the product, just the cost. Under an ideal situation, prices should go down. But when you add the layers of bureaucracy into the mix, plus the reduction in customer service, prices go up (there is no incentive to keep them down after all - no profit motive), and service goes down (the producers get less - as the rules of a monopsony dictate).

My point on the cost. Thank you for saying it more clearly.

Nobody asssumed that it was.

The point is that funny anecdotes are not arguments and generally government isn't as inefficient as that.

 

That's not a point but conjecture. Private enterprise also has administrative overhead. And thay include profits which have the same effect on the transaction as administrative overhead.

 

And here's the actual point:

While the conjecture can be made that the administrative overhead will turn the effects of the law of supply and demand around, the actual facts suggest that the cobjecture is simply wrong.

Germany does NOT spend more for healthcare than the US (per person). In fact Germany spends less.

You can argue that healthcare in Germany is not as good as in the US (which is probably true in total but not true for the lower income half of the population), but that's a different argument than the inefficiency conjecture.

 

Fact is that public healthcare systems are cheaper.

Fact is also that the conjecture that the administrative overheard of such a system diminished and even turns around the price difference is simply not true.

A possible cobjecture is not an argument. You would have to show that 1) government does add a (relevant) overhead and 2) the overhead is greater than the overhead added by a private system and 3) the overhead is in fact greater than the overhead added by a privcate system including profits.

Mentioning anecdotes about toilet seats are simply not the way to go here and doesn't prove anything. I have heard anecdotes about resource waste in private companies that would similarly "demonstrate" that nothing should ever be in private hands.

 

 

 

 

You are wrong. Governments are not exempt from the law of supply and demand. All customers attempt to be fair towards the people they represent (in most cases each individual represents himself), create lots of silly rules (e.g. I will not buy anything that is pink), and never ever add to the product, just the cost.

None of these things are unique to governments and none of these things have any effect on reversing the law of supply and demand, or at least not a greater effect that any agent in the market with his behaviour. The agent's irrational behaviours are already included in and represented by the laws discovered.

 

So, then I'm assuming that your employer covers your healthcare benefits? if so, congrats to you! If that is the case, a good sum of money is probably being paid on your families behalf by your employer, so a cost is still being incurred albeit transparently to you.

What about other companies out there that for a variety of reasons provide very little or spotty health coverage (or none at all) for their employees? How much would those families have to pay for healthcare? LW stated plainly that her husband had employer coverage but due to the usual maneuverings of HMO's and the former employer that the costs were essentially turned back to them although technically they should have been covered (LW please correct me if I'm wrong)

That's nice. I know several folks who fell ill in the States and waited to go back to Canada so they wouldn't have to pay a 20,000 dollar bill! And I'm sure that of course your agent would chose U.S healthcare system over Canadian as with all things in life, if you've got money, life is good.

Yes, I've heard the horror stories of months-long waits for critical procedures. I've never seen it personally. In my personal experience, any truly serious ailment or condition that's come up between myself, family, friends and aquaintances has always been dealt with promptly.

That begs the question then what someone considers a serious ailment. A friend of mine blew his shoulder out at the gym (lifting too much weight trying to impress girls, go figure) they stabilized it, x-rays and the whole 9 yards to figure out the problem and recommended that he get arthroscopic surgery as well as another procedure.

Now we live in a geographically remote location whose hospital doesn't have the required specialists, so he's getting flown to the nearest major center for the operation. Wait time about 2 months, the only thing that he's "impaired" in any way is that he can't lift ridiculously large amounts of weight. The flight, accomodation, x-rays, and physio (which he is undergoing right now) is all covered under our healthcare. He doesn't pay a dime.

If the same situation were to happen to a fellow with no coverage (say he couldn't afford it, fell on hard times, yada yada) he'd essentially be screwed, have to live with a busted shoulder or shell out megabucks to get it taken care of.